Note IV. These are the words of the empress: "We hear that there is a noble and splendid church dedicated to Mary, Mother of God and perpetual Virgin, on the ground called Gethsemane where her body was laid." Johann. Damascen. Orat. II. de B. M. Assumptione, ap. Quaresm. E. T. S. Lib. IV. pereg. 7, c. 2, Tom. II. p. 241.
Note V. This is the account of Sebastiano Paoli: "That most venerable Mount Sion also they have profaned and treated with no respect: the Temple of the Lord, the church in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where is the Sepulchre of the Virgin, the church at Bethlehem, and the place of our Lord's nativity, they have polluted by enormities too grievous to be told, exceeding therein the wickedness of all the Saracens." (Seb. Paoli, Cod. Diplom. del S. Mil. Ord. Gerusal. Said Ebn Batrik, II. 212.)
Note VI. It was Godfrey de Bouillon who brought these monks to Jerusalem and gave them for their abbey the whole of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. "The same Godfrey aforesaid had also brought monks from well-disciplined cloisters, religious men, and distinguished by their holy conversation, who during the whole of the journey, day and night, celebrated the divine offices according to ecclesiastical usage. And when he obtained the kingdom, he settled them at their own request in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and gave them an ample endowment." (William of Tyre, IX. 9.)
Note VII. In which place was a wonderful work built in the earliest times of the Christian religion, as S. Jerome testifies in his writings. It surpassed all the other buildings in size, workmanship, and design; but was afterwards destroyed by the treacherous Gentiles: its ruins are to be seen even to this day. Bongars, p. 574. De Vogüé says that the author grounds his statement wrongly on an apocryphal letter of S. Jerome. See Quaresmius, E. T. S. Tom. II. p. 244.
Note VIII. Brocardus writes: "The Sepulchre of the Virgin is covered with earth to such an extent that the church built upon its site, though its walls were lofty, and it had a noble roof, is now entirely buried underground.... There was built, however, on the same site, and upon the surface of the ground, a church or a building like a chapel, after the repairing of the city. Having entered this, you will descend by several steps underground to the aforementioned church and the Tomb of the Virgin; if I am not mistaken there are sixty steps. The tomb is in the middle of the choir and in front of a marble altar beautifully decorated, which the Saracens too most devoutly worship, falling down before it and kissing it, and in a loud voice, as is their custom, praying for the intercession of the Holy Virgin. I have been inside the Sepulchre itself."
Willibrand (Leo Allat. Sym. p. 149) says, "We saw a church richly adorned and in its midst a monument, covered on all sides with white, i.e. virgin, marble."